6 Hot New Email Marketing Techniques

We here at Winning Email like to keep on top of the email game, and that includes learning about and experimenting with new email marketing techniques. Let's go over 6 of the hottest new email marketing techniques we've recently discovered...

1. Pre-Targeting

This involves warming up your list before you send a major campaign (that's focused on conversions). Here's how it works:

Figure out which subscribers you want to target. This may involve segmenting your list by whatever criteria you decide, so you can easily export these subscriber's email address to a spreadsheet or text file.

Import these emails into an ad platform that allows re-targeting, such as Twitter, Facebook, or Google AdWords.

Create ads that raise brand awareness, and maybe even give your followers a small taste of what your major campaign is focusing on.

Give the ads some time to get exposure (maybe a week?)

Send your major email campaign

...

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2. Avoiding the Promotions tab in Gmail

Apparently Gmail's introduction of "tabs" (Primary, Social, and Promotions) has reduced open rates by up to 30%. So what can you do to avoid your email ending up in the Promotions tab?

Harness the Welcome email

As a bonus, ask them to add your From email address to their contacts list, so your messages are guaranteed to never end up in Spam.

Text follow-ups

This is an interesting strategy that I just read about. If you capture a new customer's phone #, and they haven't confirmed their account via email yet, you can send them a text message as a reminder to check for their confirmation email. Once they open that email, it reduces the likelihood that further emails end up in the Promotions tab.

3. Un-personalization

Apparently the over-personalization of emails lately has caused some of us to be turned off by seeing our name in the Subject line. I guess us marketers have just over-used it to death ;)

Try experimenting with casual subjects and opening lines (which become the preview text), so not to turn people away immediately, and hopefully you'll see a bump in open rates.

4. Fancy, new personalization tricks

I know, I know, I just told you that personalization was dead. Well maybe it's not! Of course you should be taking everything I say with cautious optimism, and TEST IT OUT YOURSELF. Don't just assume that since it has worked for other people it'll give the same results from your subscribers.

Fw / Re

I personally can't stand this one, but I've seen case studies where it's definitely worked. Simply add "Fw:" or "Re:" to the start of your Subject lines, and BOOM ... people think it must be important or that you've had prior contact on the subject.

Using business names

If you are fortunate / smart enough to capture the name of the company your subscriber works for, you can use that in your email Subject. People definitely pay attention to work-related emails, right? ;)

Examples:

Here's what I think about Winning Email

Did you know Winning Email is doing this?

Winning Email ... busted again ...

5. NOT selling

This one seems pretty unintuitive, but by not selling anything in your email, by just providing VALUE and GREAT CONTENT, you build a positive repoire with your customers, which can help with a future email campaign that DOES include a CTA.

Try including a little teaser at the end of the email, to get them thinking subconsciously about what's to come ...

6. Off-peak sending

Rather than sending at peak times (in the morning during week days), like EVERYBODY else, why not experiment with sending at off-peak times? Maybe your subscribers get overwhelmed by too many emails at one time, so they're more likely to archive/delete/spam them. But if it's a Sunday and they're sitting around watching football, maybe you'll get more of their attention? It's worth a try!

Author

Kane has a background in computer engineering, but now focuses on creating new and interesting web services. His passion for improving his own email deliverability rates was the driving force behind the creation of Winning.Email.